14 thoughts on “Modern aircraft flyaway costs”

1. Actually things may be alot worse for the F-35 for sortie ratio’s then you even state.

   “The Air Force wanted the F-35As at Eglin AFB to be available for training missions 33 percent of the time: the equivalent of each aircraft flying one sortie every three days. (pp. 29, 30) By late 2012 this very modest minimum was basically being achieved (p. 29), but certain aircraft at various times during the OUE flew as seldom as one sortie every 7 to 10 days. (pp. 30, 31)”

   http://www.pogo.org/blog/2013/03/20130306-air-forces-f-35a-not-ready-for-combat.html

   So it is looking even worse than ever, and if they can’t fly this late in the development program and years behind schedule it puts a big question mark.

   Sortie ratio could be as low as .3 or so… And this is for training and not actual combat missions, which very well might make even this low sortie rate that much lower.

   If you don’t mind me asking were do you find stats for sortie ratio’s on the above aircraft, and have you ever seen a documented stat for the su-35?

   Good article by the way.

   LikeLike

   Reply

   1. Technically, F-35 is still in development so I decided to give F-35 a benefit of doubt and so used the F-22 sortie rate. But in reality, 1 sortie every 3 days is unlikely to improve, as F-35 is far more complex than F-22 is.

      I can’t remember exactly where I have found sortie rates for all aircraft listed, but what I do remember is that F-15s 1 sorties per day per aircraft and F-16s 1,2 s/d/a come from Second Gulf War, and that during operations in Libya Typhoons flew two sorties per day per aircraft. This matches very well with numbers I have for maintenance downtime for these aircraft, so sortie rates for most other aircraft are calculated through that – all three Eurocanards seem to have similar maintenance downtime, for example.

      LikeLike

      Reply

2. At 4 million each back in the 1980’s and now $11 million for a brand new su-25sm model, it has to be the leader in price and sortie ratio’s.

   Iran–Iraq War

   “The Su-25 also saw combat during the Iran–Iraq War of 1980–1988. The first Su-25s were commissioned by the Iraqi Air Force in 1987 and performed approximately 900 combat sorties throughout the course of the war, carrying out the bulk of Iraqi air attack missions. During the most intense combat of the war, Iraqi Su-25s were performing up to fifteen sorties per day each. In one recorded incident, an Iraqi Su-25 was shot down by an Iranian Hawk surface-to-air missile, but the pilot managed to eject. This was the only confirmed successful Iranian attack against an Iraqi Su-25. After the war, Saddam Hussein decorated all of the Iraqi Air Force’s Su-25 pilots with the country’s highest military decoration”

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-25

   I wonder what the sortie ratio is for the A-10c, or 3 of sorties per day?

   LikeLike

   Reply

   1. A-10 can fly 3 sorties per day, yes.

      LikeLike

      Reply

3. I meant to put # put hit 3 instead, sorry

   LikeLike

   Reply

4. Hi Picard.
   Rafale is one of your favorite jet fighter isn’t it? 😉

   I Will never blame you of such an opinion.

   LikeLike

   Reply

   1. Yes, it is. It’s currently a tie between Rafale C and Gripen C for the first place. YF-16 would have been a third option, but it is only a prototype, and F-16A introduced quite few changes which I don’t like.

      LikeLike

      Reply

5. I can see that f-35 and also f-22 would cost alot and be more maintenance due to ram coatings and more high tech cutting edge electronics and the push to get that last 10% of performance out of the design.

   In my research though I cannot see why the European designs would be less maintenance than the American designs. Some of the electronics are the same in each planes even.. Plus an f-15a does not have that much high tech electronics compared to Rafael or euro-fighter since it is an older design…

   Just that to get twice the sortie ratio with the same type of aircraft even if they have sometimes similar electronics even…

   Plus an eurofighter or rafael also have similar level of sophistication and amount of electronics as the American designs.

   I just wondering how you come up with this calculation and reasoning Picard.

   I do believe though my research that rafael, su-35 and euro-fighter are about the best of the 4.5 gen fighters out there performance wise, they are also the newest designs as well.

   LikeLike

   Reply

   1. Rafale and especially Gripen are designed with easy maintenance in mind – but keep in mind that this is just base-level maintenance; for example, Rafale’s engines are made from modules, and to fix an engine you just identify where the problem is, put in the new module and send malfunctioning module home for repairs. So fighter is quickly back in the air, but it adds to a logistics tail. Gripen OTOH is very easy to repair on any level. As for US fighters, F-5 could manage 3 sorties per day per aircraft, more than any fighter on the list, but it is quite simple design.

      LikeLike

      Reply

      1. Thank you for explaining this.

         LikeLike

6. It is from the gulf war and libya war ratio’s?

   I guess perhaps France had newer jets that are in better shape, and also knew if was a shorter war so they could have a higher ratio of sorties for a shorter amount of time. Were in the gulf war American planes average age might have been older and thus more prone to more maintenance.

   Also since the gulf war was a more high intensity war and did not know how long it would last so during that conflict they were more conservative and careful to have less sortie ratio’s for the first month in order to have a higher military preparedness in case the war went wrong and lasted a long time, were in Libya you did not have to worry about that as much so you could go all out from the beginning as Libya did not have much anyways as an air-force or ground forces to counter attack…

   I just trying to think things through and reason things out.

   LikeLike

   Reply

   1. Age was most likely a factor, yes. Plus see my answer above.

      LikeLike

      Reply
7. Pingback: Quora
8. Pingback: How to shoot down a stealth fighter – Strategika 51